Gerald the stuffed giraffe is back. One of the favourite exhibits in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) before it closed for refurbishment now stands proudly alongside an elephant, a Native American shield and a harpsichord.
Gerald is in the Case Histories gallery, part of the new extension, which introduces visitors to the global nature of the museum’s collections. The refurbishment of the 1860s building has preserved the elaborate Victorian facade and imposing entrance, and also cleared the original galleries of their 20th-century clutter.
An additional entrance has been added as part of the extension at the rear of building, which also serves to connect the RAMM to the neighbouring arts centre, Rougemont Gardens and the Roman walls.
Given this choice of entrances, this is a museum that encourages exploration – there is more than one introduction to the collection for the visitor. In addition to Case Histories, Finders Keepers tells the story of the collectors and draws attention to some of the dilemmas inherent in the collection and display of objects in the contemporary world.
In a central courtyard between the old and new buildings, a two-storey glass case illustrates the variety of material here. The touchscreens that provide information on these items invite visitors to get involved – examples include musical notes floating from the images of bugles, an animated stoneware face jug, and a bird from the artwork in the ornithology gallery that flies across the screen.
Rewarding tangents
Visitors exploring the museum are given lots of opportunities to go off at a tangent – such as into the small ornithology gallery where a large glass case contains some 137 birds.
Touchscreen computers enable visitors to identify and find out more about individual specimens and additional information is provided through film, sound and an interactive display. Art is also used to bring the objects to life, with a large flock of birds made from fine-woven metal created by the artist Michelle McKinney.
Another small gallery houses the insect collection, where a huge number of butterflies, moths and other insects positively glow. This is complemented by a film showing activity within the hive accompanied by the sound of insects.
It may no longer be considered acceptable to collect specimens as the Victorians did, but having been collected it is right that they are displayed and interpreted for modern audiences.
The geology gallery displays rock samples and shows their use through the ages as tools, as building materials and in mining. A film describes the creation of the local landscape.
Regional history
One of the largest galleries in the museum tells the story of the history of Exeter and Devon from prehistory to the present day, not through text or graphics, but by the use of a wide range of objects, from pottery to costume, from furniture to paintings, from axe heads to lace bobbins.
Despite these new galleries, the heart of the museum remains in the spaces containing the internationally important World Cultures and Ancient Worlds collections.
Redeveloped in 1999, the integration of these galleries into the new layout is testament to the success of the overall scheme. Here, as throughout the museum, the story of the people who used the objects is brought out.
The most important achievement is that the objects in the collections have remained at the core of the museum.
The RAMM has not been reinvented – it has been reinterpreted for a modern audience. Technology enhances visitors’ engagement with, and enjoyment of, the collection.
In many ways the new displays hold to the principles of a cabinet of curiosities. People are invited to open whichever “door” they fancy – or in the case of the museum, whichever room they choose to enter.
The redevelopment has enabled the museum to open a suite of galleries for temporary exhibitions. False ceilings have been removed, giving the spaces an airy feel, and new visitor routes have been created.
These galleries are of regional, if not national, significance, a status which is borne out by the quality of the three opening exhibitions. One features early British photographs by Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron from the Royal Collection.
They include photographs of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the 150th anniversary of whose death coincided with the reopening of the RAMM in December.
The second temporary exhibition is a history of the 18th-century Grand Tour explored through the eyes of the wealthy local Devonian, John Rolle Walter.
Works loaned for this show include two Canalettos from the Queen’s collection and Joseph Wright’s Vesuvius in Eruption. These are hung alongside the museum’s newly acquired portrait of Walter by Pompeo Batoni, and Thomas Patch’s famous caricature of travellers on the Grand Tour.
The third temporary exhibition, Into the Light, features 54 paintings exploring a crucial period in French and British painting: the 50-year period from impressionism to the early 1920s.
It was curated by Sam Smiles, and includes works by Cézanne, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Vanessa Bell, Sickert and Sisley. It is possibly one of the most important exhibitions to have been commissioned by the RAMM and the spaces in which it is being shown do it justice.
There are opportunities for children to dress-up, make pictures, handle objects and interact with the displays throughout the galleries. When I was there these opportunities were being fully utilised.
Information on collecting and conservation is also provided in a Behind the Scenes gallery, and windows on to the museum store allow people to see material that is not on display.
The museum aims to be “home to a million thoughts” and all those involved in bringing it back to life should be congratulated on what they have achieved.
Peter Mason is a writer on culture
Gerald is in the Case Histories gallery, part of the new extension, which introduces visitors to the global nature of the museum’s collections. The refurbishment of the 1860s building has preserved the elaborate Victorian facade and imposing entrance, and also cleared the original galleries of their 20th-century clutter.
An additional entrance has been added as part of the extension at the rear of building, which also serves to connect the RAMM to the neighbouring arts centre, Rougemont Gardens and the Roman walls.
Given this choice of entrances, this is a museum that encourages exploration – there is more than one introduction to the collection for the visitor. In addition to Case Histories, Finders Keepers tells the story of the collectors and draws attention to some of the dilemmas inherent in the collection and display of objects in the contemporary world.
In a central courtyard between the old and new buildings, a two-storey glass case illustrates the variety of material here. The touchscreens that provide information on these items invite visitors to get involved – examples include musical notes floating from the images of bugles, an animated stoneware face jug, and a bird from the artwork in the ornithology gallery that flies across the screen.
Rewarding tangents
Visitors exploring the museum are given lots of opportunities to go off at a tangent – such as into the small ornithology gallery where a large glass case contains some 137 birds.
Touchscreen computers enable visitors to identify and find out more about individual specimens and additional information is provided through film, sound and an interactive display. Art is also used to bring the objects to life, with a large flock of birds made from fine-woven metal created by the artist Michelle McKinney.
Another small gallery houses the insect collection, where a huge number of butterflies, moths and other insects positively glow. This is complemented by a film showing activity within the hive accompanied by the sound of insects.
It may no longer be considered acceptable to collect specimens as the Victorians did, but having been collected it is right that they are displayed and interpreted for modern audiences.
The geology gallery displays rock samples and shows their use through the ages as tools, as building materials and in mining. A film describes the creation of the local landscape.
Regional history
One of the largest galleries in the museum tells the story of the history of Exeter and Devon from prehistory to the present day, not through text or graphics, but by the use of a wide range of objects, from pottery to costume, from furniture to paintings, from axe heads to lace bobbins.
Despite these new galleries, the heart of the museum remains in the spaces containing the internationally important World Cultures and Ancient Worlds collections.
Redeveloped in 1999, the integration of these galleries into the new layout is testament to the success of the overall scheme. Here, as throughout the museum, the story of the people who used the objects is brought out.
The most important achievement is that the objects in the collections have remained at the core of the museum.
The RAMM has not been reinvented – it has been reinterpreted for a modern audience. Technology enhances visitors’ engagement with, and enjoyment of, the collection.
In many ways the new displays hold to the principles of a cabinet of curiosities. People are invited to open whichever “door” they fancy – or in the case of the museum, whichever room they choose to enter.
The redevelopment has enabled the museum to open a suite of galleries for temporary exhibitions. False ceilings have been removed, giving the spaces an airy feel, and new visitor routes have been created.
These galleries are of regional, if not national, significance, a status which is borne out by the quality of the three opening exhibitions. One features early British photographs by Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron from the Royal Collection.
They include photographs of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the 150th anniversary of whose death coincided with the reopening of the RAMM in December.
The second temporary exhibition is a history of the 18th-century Grand Tour explored through the eyes of the wealthy local Devonian, John Rolle Walter.
Works loaned for this show include two Canalettos from the Queen’s collection and Joseph Wright’s Vesuvius in Eruption. These are hung alongside the museum’s newly acquired portrait of Walter by Pompeo Batoni, and Thomas Patch’s famous caricature of travellers on the Grand Tour.
The third temporary exhibition, Into the Light, features 54 paintings exploring a crucial period in French and British painting: the 50-year period from impressionism to the early 1920s.
It was curated by Sam Smiles, and includes works by Cézanne, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Vanessa Bell, Sickert and Sisley. It is possibly one of the most important exhibitions to have been commissioned by the RAMM and the spaces in which it is being shown do it justice.
There are opportunities for children to dress-up, make pictures, handle objects and interact with the displays throughout the galleries. When I was there these opportunities were being fully utilised.
Information on collecting and conservation is also provided in a Behind the Scenes gallery, and windows on to the museum store allow people to see material that is not on display.
The museum aims to be “home to a million thoughts” and all those involved in bringing it back to life should be congratulated on what they have achieved.
Peter Mason is a writer on culture
Project data
- Cost £24m
- Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund £10m; Exeter City Council
- Architect Allies and Morrison
- Exhibition design Ralph Appelbaum Associates
- Main contractor BAM Construction
- Project manager and quantity surveyor Focus Consultants
- Structural and services engineer Building Design Partnership
- Construction design management Northcroft
- Fit-out Benbow Group
- Display cases ClickNetherfield; Benbow Group
- Exhibition lighting DHA Lighting
- AV interactives Spiral Productions